


Cult of The Scratchy

by gomushroom



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: ninoexchange, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2018-10-12 03:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10481382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gomushroom/pseuds/gomushroom
Summary: Nino is a typographic designer. Jun is his partner at their struggling unconventional graphics company. Sho is their sole intern. They have an important pitch the next day for Freestyle photobook’s cover typeface design.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2012 Ninoexchange.
> 
> Contained nerdy technical language and some profanities. A nerd fest of graphic design---even if I am a total art-blind and have even less capacity of artistic capability as one Sakurai Sho. ;)
> 
> Nino and his view on typography are based on David Carson, both in character and ideology. Excessively inspired/guided by [Helvetica](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_\(film\)), [Basics Typography 01: Virtual Typography](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Typography-01-Virtual/dp/294037399X), Adam Field’s gorgeous composition – _How do you define a journey?_ , Jessica Helfand’s quotes on ‘scratchy’-ness and her coined term as the title of this fic, and Ohno’s Freestyle photo book (especially the first two from which I took awesome quotes from and the last one which I kept on skimming at difficult times).

“If we don’t start now, we’re going to be here all night. Let’s just do this, shall we? I really want to have dinner before the clock strikes midnight for a change. Stop adding more and more final touches. Didn’t you get them all ‘final-touch’-ed yesterday?” Jun towers over Nino who is hunkered down in front of his personal computer, trying to figure out why the composition isn’t ready yet.

The night runs hot and humid; with the projector having been running for nearly two hours now, their enclosed small office is sweltering. Nino hums absently in response as he adjusts the palette on the screen, adding random clicks of text squares on the right corner.

“Nino,” Jun reminds him.

“Two minutes,” Nino dismisses him. “Go order Sho-chan around for a while and let me finish this.”

Jun sighs, walks away, granting the umpteenth “two more minutes” request, and takes on ordering Sho. “We don’t have coffee within our reach, Sakurai! Meeting’s starting in two minutes, and this time I mean it!”

Nino ignores Jun completely and proceeds with copy-pasting the new little intentionally misaligned letter “f”.

 

“Now that we are all _finally_ here,” Jun begins an hour later, taking the only tall square chair while waiting for Nino to reconnect the DVI plug. Sho settles quietly on one end of the small sofa with his notebook and pen ready, leaving his stacks of notes and unfinished documents next to Jun’s equally tall paper stacks at his workstation.

Nino reaches to the projector, powering it up. Slowly a clear picture of their proposed cover for tomorrow’s pitch meeting appears. “Two words. Free. Style,” Nino declares, pointing at the picture starkly projected on their dingy office wall with a flourish.

 

_A vivid dark blood red background_  
counterpoises with dizzying intense light  
casting a strong shadow behind  
a puissant golden statue center stage.

_A finger pointing to the left_  
shifts the cover’s focus onto  
the typographic composition of  
the book’s title.

_Lined horizontally,_  
“f” leads “r e e”  
regressing toward grainy assorted tiny types  
forming the word “s t y l e”.

_Seemingly random letters,_  
giving the impression of  
scattered of black shiny sprinkles-size types  
shape the word ‘f r e e s t y l e’,  
challenging the viewer to  
either focus on the small chaos of sprinkled type  
or perceive the letters in ‘f r e e’  
while being taunted to grasp ‘s t y l e’.

_Small glossed ruby characters_  
on the upper left of the cover,  
大野智作品乗 [ フリースタイル ],  
are marginal notation and translation.

 

Sho’s hands pause in mid-applause when Jun quickly shoots him a warning look, turning his focus back to Nino, “This is not the fucking 90s, damn it, Nino!”

“Jun-kun,” Nino stays unwaveringly, smiling pleasantly, “we should live a little!”

“We are already living,” Jun replies, “frugally, if I might add.”

“And people say _I_ am the cheapskate,” Nino turns to Sho. “I wouldn’t have been mistaken to guess that your hands in midair were planning to perform a merry applause for me, would I?”

Sho nods eagerly, much to Jun’s dismay.

“Let’s get serious,” Jun says again, “and past the frivolity. I hope you have a good argument that can land the commission in our laps for tomorrow. Or I’m going to throw an epic fit in a minute."

“You know I trust you, all that shit and beyond, but. But this. _This_ ,” Jun throws his hands up exasperatedly. “What the fuck? Are you trying to flop this once in a lifetime chance? Or inflame those poor old conventional folks? What?”

Nino turns calmly to Sho instead. “Sho-chan, remember when I told you about how we handle things differently in this office?”

Not waiting for Sho’s reply, Nino flexes his fingers, takes a deep breath. “Well, you are about to witness the core of the difference. Be ready.”

“Nino,” Jun growls impatiently, shifting Nino’s attention back to him. “Stop trying to be cute. Explain or this may call for a proper slap on the face. _Your_ face.”

“Let’s not get violent and scare Sho-chan here,” Nino replies calmly. “Before anything else, why don’t I suggest a moment of silence to step out from the first impression zone and look beyond the image and text into the whole existence of information within the cover.”

Massaging the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath, telling himself that this is his partner Nino, Jun stays silent for a while. He opens his eyes again to look directly at Sho, trying to blank his mind.

“Sorry, let me stare at your face for a while. I need to rest my orbs after that offensive composition and see something pretty for 10 seconds,” Jun answers the wordless question Sho aims at him.

Sho blushes.

“Jun-kun, _you_ stop trying to be cute,” Nino folds his arms, leaning against the wall and blocking the right half of the composition.

In an effort of shifting his audience’s attention back to him rather than back to the composition in question, he clears his throat and starts again. “First, it’s not like I’m throwing all the conventionality out of the window. At least, that wasn’t the starting point of it all. I would be lying to say that wasn’t the plan because you know how I tend to defy rules.”

Jun swallows the ‘tell me about it’ retort on the tip of his tongue and keeps his expression unamused.

“Still, I’m just applying things that make sense to me,” Nino continues. “The vivid red background will steal the viewers’ attention, just as it gets mine. The statue intrigues them, just as it intrigues me.

“The horizontal choice of text direction visually triggers people’s curiosity, just as it triggers me to instantly place this cover as Japanese. The rubies help emphasize that message, just as furigana help people, help you, help us,” Nino’s wobbly voice gradually clears nearing the pause.

“The composition sparks expectation, frowns, questions, awes, and substantial curiosities over this photo book shit, just as it sparks my expectation and most importantly your frowns and awes.” Nino grins smugly. “All that, in a nutshell.”

Sho nods again, trying to focus on the projected image. Jun on the other hand refuses to yield.

“One word. Legibility,” Jun begins.

Nino sighs; Jun knows it’s only for show and they will need a good solid argument. They have to elaborate the whole concept tomorrow and having Nino running it by him will bring sharper results.

“Legibility doesn’t mean communication,” Nino taps the projected wall. “Just because this is not perfectly legible doesn’t mean it is not communicating,” Nino pauses to let his words sink into his partner. “Or just because I refuse to settle with ubiquitous typeface this time and go with something not ‘intellectually’ legible doesn’t mean my composition over your photo is not communicating.

“I firmly refuse to settle with ubiquity this time, not for this beauty,” Nino declares passionately. “I mean, look at your primary image, your superb photo that I have to lay typeface on, just look at it! Your hard work: your set up, your choice of plain frontal clarity.

“Jun-kun, I am not going to waste this with normal typeface in plain black. What do you take me for? What do you take us for? Just another graphic designer? Hell no!”

Nino knows Jun is faltering already; he pushes on.

“Let's say I put the usual rigid, clean, and nondescript Sans-Serif instead of this shit right here,” he points to the projected image.

“Let’s say it’s black. It’s neat. It’s rigid. Let’s say it _is_ clean. It _is_ simple. And fucking _boring_ ,” Nino throws both his hands up. “Imagine that!”

Meanwhile, Jun folds his hand closer to his chest, swelling with pride as he enjoys the sight. Sho itches to reach for his coffee but decides against it, giving in to the urge to stay as unnoticed as he could possibly be.

Focusing solely on Jun, Nino senses a victory and presses on. “Imagine that and try to seek the idea of free fucking style in just plain ‘f r e e s t y l e’. There’s nothing free about it; there’s no style at all. No fucking style at all!” A slight pause. “Self-contradiction and dull altogether.”

Sho shifts rather awkwardly on his sofa corner.

“It’s all about typeface declaring the main statement, and to repeat myself, in your face,” Nino adds. “We need to do this! This composition is ours, this is ours to use, ours to exploit, ours to be proud of,” Nino charges on.

Jun turns to Sho, “Can you get us all more coffee, please? I need something to stimulate my recovery from this assault on the senses.” Sho smiles weakly, glancing at Nino who is tch-ing a ‘bookworm’ comment sulkily while leaning against the wall with folded hands and a slight pout. He goes to Jun’s table to get the pot.

“It’s not that I have no faith in you, Nino,” Jun says. Sho hands him his cup, filled with steaming bad coffee. “Ah, thank you.”

Sho puts Nino’s refill on the wobbly side table next to him, knowing it would stay untouched at least until the design is settled. He settles back in his seat, sipping his coffee and realizing he knows how this was going to end but still filled with anticipation of what was to come.

Jun continues. “I completely understand that we are going to send an actual message beyond the choice of typeface but must we venture to such extremes? Especially now when we could really, _really_ use this commission.”

“I know you’re the one who usually wants innovation, but you’re holding yourself down, playing safe on this game because this commission is important for us, important for both of us. I know you just want to win this and I totally understand that, but we need to do this. We need to stay classy, fresh, and sassy!” Nino makes a grandiose flinging arms gesture.

“Yes! This time, I might have gone a little bit frenetic about being experimental and crap,” he admits openly, “but this just screams us. Us, our dream of being just a little bit true to ourselves and embracing the difference.”

Jun stares.

“Plus intellectual legibility is for weenies,” Nino adds.

“Weenies who regularly win big ass projects,” Jun retorts while mentally forcing himself to begin assimilating Nino’s full-on forceful explanation into an acceptable concept he can use on tomorrow’s presentation.

“I thought we agreed to keep this cover simple and clean. I was having a hard time accepting this composition, which is usually not a very good sign of where our work is heading. We may not get it, if the fact I was literally jolted on the first viewing is any indication.”

“But we did justice to their request. Simple and clean, they said. _This_ is simple and clean,” Nino insists. “Hard, cold-blooded justice, Jun-kun. Hard cold-blooded fucking justice to simplicity and cleanliness.”

Jun stares straight at Nino whose eyes are focused and shining with enthusiasm that doesn’t come often yet potent when it does. And Nino knows that he is very close in getting Jun in line. All he needs to do is to shake Jun’s ingrained pragmatism a little bit more.

“There’s a very thin line between simple and clean and powerful,” Nino sums up, giving the closing of his speech, “and simple and clean and _boring_.”

“Oh, stop exclaiming your favourite quote every chance you get," Jun waves him down flippantly, a sure sign, Nino knows, of him mulling Nino’s ideas over and being two steps away from agreeing. "Save it for tomorrow; you should’ve been practicing your pitch speech anyway.”

Sho doesn’t know why but he finally relaxes a bit.

“Simple and clean and powerful notwithstanding, it could work though; perhaps those old conventionalists will lap this shit up,” Jun starts thinking out loud, frown slowly vanishing.

“It could actually work. You would have to rephrase your explanation. Sakurai and I can help you with that. But it could work. Damn it, Nino, it _could_ ,” Jun lights up a bit. Nino lets the fact sink into Jun’s practical mind securely, knowing the man will eventually take on his final design.

Jun shifts his leg, sipping his coffee slowly, eyes fixed on the composition pasted on top of the cover design. Nino finally reaches for his forgotten cup of coffee, taking a gulp not minding the bitter taste, and regrets it afterward. The bloody cheap coffee, he mentally curses, aiming an accusing look over at a clueless Sho.

“It could actually work,” Jun murmurs, shaking his head lightly, already starting to plan their supporting argument for tomorrow. Nino does a victory pose internally, covering his satisfied smile with the cup.

Jun darts a glance back at Nino. “But you are also need to note that I’m going to throw that crap you just said right back at your face when you complain about your cut paycheck next month or the next time we’re in a financial pinch again,” Jun finally gives in.

“I am,” Nino smiles toothily.

“You better remember this,” Jun points a finger to him, smiling right back.

Sho lets out the breath he’s been unconsciously holding.

“I will,” Nino beams, setting aside his cup of coffee.

“Uhm,” Sho chimes, deciding that it may be safe for him to utter a thing or two then.

“Yes?” Jun turns to him. “You have something to say on this?”

“If I may offer an opinion,” Sho offers a weak smile in return of Jun’s stare and Nino’s questioning look, but then Jun nods lightly, urging him on. “I’m on Ninomiya-san’s side this time.”

“Since when are you taking sides? But do go on,” Nino says.

“That was just a figure of speech,” clearing his throat, Sho hesitates, but Jun is listening and Nino doesn’t seem to have any problem with his opinion so far.

“The typeface specifically might seem ill-resolved at first. _At first_ ,” having the ridiculous fear that office stationery projectiles are going to start flinging his way, he shifts his gaze from the wall and meets genuinely curious waiting stares.

“Even if it may be difficult to read initially,” Sho starts again. “Even if it may require a little more time or more involvement of the viewer, this cover design is daring and definitely transpires more emotion, more style in its own unique way of achieving freedom, or in this case, the intended sense of freestyle-ness. It simply, and cleanly, throws you off-balance. It is intriguing and exceptional in so many ways.”

Bright light from the projector flickers briefly, accentuating the silence.

“I knew I hired you for a reason, Sho-chan,” Nino starts.

”Note his words, Nino, you are using them for the presentation tomorrow. Verbatim,” Jun smiles proudly at Sho. “That’s my intern.”

“Nope, I hired him, meaning he is _my_ intern,” Nino also smiles proudly at Sho.

“ _I_ sign his miniscule paycheck, he’s mine,” Jun converses.

“If we get this commission, you’re getting a bonus,” Nino throws a salute at Sho, completely ignoring Jun.

“Which is taken from your monthly salary,” Jun retorts.

“My miniscule designer tri-monthly salary,” Nino rolls his eyes.

Sho stares, stunned at the compliments.

“All the while, you’re finally getting that promotion after all, Sakurai,” Jun reaches over and pats him firmly on the shoulder.

“But,” Sho points out, “I’m the only intern here.”

“Minor detail,” Jun assures him. “Senior Intern will look better than just Intern on your new business card, don’t you think?”

“The new business card that I will surely design and print myself,” Sho concludes.

“Exactly. That’s the spirit, Senior Intern,” Jun brings the topic to a close, glancing over his schedule notes. “Now, where were we before this praise fest? Oh, the design is duly approved. Now, for some technicalities.”

 

“Time check. Sakurai?” Jun slides the empty beer glass toward the center of their cluttered desk.

“12.01 AM, Sir,” Sho frowns over at his wristwatch with an effort.

“We should take Sho-chan out to drink more often, Jun-kun,” Nino leans back in his chair, sipping his beer slowly. “He’s so cute, ‘Sir’-ing both of us all night.”

“Sorry ‘bout that. _Sir_ ,” Sho chuckles.

The yakitori is greasy, sweet, and unhealthy, the beer cold, crisp, and amazing; they have the restaurant almost to themselves. Jun tries to roll his eyes, before deciding such effort would take a heavy toll on his loose brain, and spares the two some slack of the drunken semi-revelry.

He is rather glad he couldn’t resist the temptation of capping the day with good food after chained to each of their computers for nearly a week. It ends the day pretty well.

Sho grabs his half-full beer glass, throws up a salute, and continues, “If I was drunk enough, dear Sir, I would have told you that I am actually a year older and unlike you, hold a bachelor’s degree in economics. In your face!” Sho tries to look serious despite his pink cheeks, sweaty forehead, tired eyes, and stupid grin.

“Corny and expected, Sho-chan! Haven’t you been listening to me all this time? Haven’t I taught you anything, intern? Nino slaps Sho’s slouching back hard. “You’re totally not drunk, not drunk enough for that statement. So, I’m just going to steal Jun-kun’s master’s degree to beat you on that. In your face right back!”

“I think I listen to you too often, Ninomiya-san,” Sho says, propping his chin on his hands, beaming with the stupid drunk grin, forgetting his intention to slap Nino’s shoulder in retaliation. “And it’s Senior Intern. _Sir_.”

“Smart ass, ass kisser, it rhymes, Sho-chan!” Nino chuckles. “Even so, you are still a long way from doing interpretive stuff. Let’s not get there yet and stick with paperwork for now.”

“And here I thought I was promoted, around…” Sho frowns over his wristwatch again, “three hours ago.”

“Such a fond and distant memory,” Nino slumps on the table, grinning at the ashtray before turning to Jun.

Too relaxed to even bother joining the merry talk, Jun rests his back against his chair. His mind wanders over the past week: a week of dealing with charts, sorting pictures and the madness of choosing one, composing the presentation, finishing off the other small mundane projects that actually pay the bills, and dealing with their main client, Aiba Masaki the pharmacist and proud owner of the small drugstore on 5-chome. Intense doesn’t even begin to describe it.

As if on cue, Sho slightly bounces off his seat, “Oh, Matsumoto-san, I forgot to inform you.”

“We’re not in the office at the moment, Sakurai, cut the formalities, will you?” Jun replies. “What is it?”

“Aiba-san called earlier this morning, when you were out for the photo shoot and Ninomiya-san couldn’t be bothered since he was, uhm, rather occupied,” Sho explains with all the seriousness he could muster.

“And?” Jun prompts him.

“Ah, he would like to know when he could review the new pamphlet design while inquiring if he could have another set of business cards by the end of this month,” Sho blinks to clear his mind. “I have to consult my notes to be sure, but I think that’s about all.”

Nino giggles incessantly at Sho’s gaucheness.

“Sakurai, I think you should be able to handle business card orders by now. Deal with it personally next week, will you? The two of us are going to be busy in the mean time, being experimental and all that shit.”

“We will, Jun-kun. We will,” Nino hollers, much to Sho’s distress of not being included.

“Yes, we will,” Jun chuckles at Nino’s insistence and takes pity on Sho. “We and Sakurai will.”

Sho beams.

 

Jun blocks Nino’s idea of having another round of beer ten minutes later, stays firm against Sho’s offer to pay the last round with his money, and suggests they start heading back as soon as they finish their last glasses of beer.

“You know, what if our next big thing never gets here?” Jun murmurs to his beer glass, before setting it in the center to join Nino’s and Sho’s empty glasses.

“Then, we’ll be having loads of the next small thing available,” Nino answers promptly, reaching over to Jun. “Write that down on your schedule book, Sho-chan.”

“I would have already, Sir, if I remembered where I put it,” Sho fumbles for a while, reaching for his bag, and begins rummaging in it with an air of drunken seriousness.

“We are going to end up scraping by with those annoying small projects, Nino,” Jun continues, staring straight at Nino, ignoring the noises Sho makes across the table. “Those cheeky simple pamphlets, the mundane photo shoots, the business card stupidities, all the insipidness we have to bear in order to tide us over till forever.”

Hand firm on Jun shoulder, Nino squeezes lightly, “The hefty price of aesthetic pleasure; you know it, I know it, we know it. Probably Sho-chan knows it but I doubt that.”

“Hey,” this time Sho interjects weakly, pausing with his hand mid-search.

“We’re young, fearless and stupid. What if twenty years from now someone’s going to come up to us asking for an interview glorifying our youth, fearlessness and stupidity? What if twenty years from now we’re still doing simple pamphlets, mundane photo shoots and business card stupidities? What-if doesn’t count. It never does, never will. We can only _be_ young, fearless and stupid. I’ll deal with the young, you with the fearless, and Sho-chan will handle the stupid,” Nino finishes. “We’ll be fine.”

Jun swats at Nino’s grinning flushed face, “Write that down on your quote book, Sakurai. It’s a damn order. I may need to throw that thick memo to his face one day.”

Sho starts to protest when he sees Nino rubbing his head and scrunching his face sullenly and Jun laughing at the face Nino makes. He fleetingly feels forgotten and left out of something precious. When Jun asks for the bill, Nino groans in protest, claiming the night is still young. The moment passes and Sho forgets what he was about to protest against.

 

They step out of the shop, relaxed and properly wound down; Sho sways and appears a bit too drunk for his own good, holding onto the shop’s light box.

“Let’s walk him to the station, Jun-kun, he might get molested on the way, we have to protect him. I mean, look at that ass,” Nino tugs Jun’s sleeve.

“Ugh, no thanks,” Jun winces, although a walk sounds nice to cap the night. They do need to do nice things for Sho once in a while, especially after the hell week they’ve been going through.

They walk Sho to the station unhurriedly, Nino swaying drunkenly like he’s joined at the hips with Sho, murmuring the intro of Choo Choo Train in harmony repeatedly all through the thin foot traffic over Romansu doori, Jun sauntering two steps behind them. Right around the corner of Metropolitan Plaza, Nino lets Sho go gently, patting him proudly on the shoulder flourishingly, while Jun bows. “Thank you for your hard work today.”

Sho awkwardly bows back, rather unsure of what to do at this turn of events. He settles on waving cutely before swaying and turning to walk toward the station’s west entrance.

Sharing quick glances and nods, they decide to sit on an empty bench while waiting for Sho to safely disappear from their sight. Nino leans on Jun, pleasantly dizzy, solid, and warm. Jun’s hands loop around his waist, providing support while taking some in return. “You think Sakurai will reach home safely?”

“We’ll interrogate him tomorrow,” Nino replies sleepily, resting his head comfortably on Jun’s shoulder, refusing to make additional moves, “if he manages to show up at the office at 8 AM. You can always cut his salary if he’s late. Now, how are we going to get back to the office?”

In the distance, Sho somehow manages to get inside the station, wobbly and slow, and Jun figures that he’ll be fine and shifts his mind back to the question. “The same way we got here, of course,” Jun replies absently.

“Shoulder to shoulder strolling through the night crowd, going past sex shops singing the Choo Choo Train intro?” Nino giggles at the thought and Jun laughs in response, letting Nino get away with suggestion.

“You know,” ten minutes have passed in silence before Nino slowly murmurs, “all these nondescript blinding text and images plastered on fluorescent light boxes around us persistently subsist within sight, sending mixed messages to anyone who bother to react over it.”

Jun gets a clear sight of Nino’s view: raunchy loud blinking minuscule slices of Tokyo ad billboards, incongruous appearances of typeface variations, of roman, kanji, and kana characters, conformity between all schemes of faces constantly prompting or even assaulting society’s field of vision.

“l never learned things l wasn't supposed to do anyway so fuck nondescript. As long as I am favoured to work with your images, Jun-kun, I will keep on sidestepping default and designing shit that makes sense to me. To us.”

“What the hell did they put in your beer?” Jun flicks his shoulder lightly, trying to nudge Nino’s head halfheartedly when he stays silent. He sighs when Nino yawns instead and snuggles closer. “There’s no saying what’ll happen but I too won’t have it any other way.” Jun pauses. “Just in case it needs to be said.”

Nino mumbles sleepily, “It never does. I already know; we are self-contradictory and endearing like that.”

Neither of them makes the slightest movement for a while.

.


End file.
